


Quiet and Alone

by hipsterbloodritual



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hipsterbloodritual/pseuds/hipsterbloodritual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am the son of Steve Carlsberg. My bloodstone chants are quiet and lonely, and I fell in love with a perfect and beautiful girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Cecil complained about Dad on the radio again. I don't know how Dad has survived this long to be honest. I think we'll all be better off when he's stuck in the abandoned mine shaft with nothing but his fellow conspiracy theorists and HBO. A little Game of Thrones would probably be good for him.

There was a Boy Scout meeting today. We started learning more about the Hooded Figures, but then the troop leader suddenly vaporized. For the rest of the meeting we watched George Holmes make a miniature model of his family's bloodstones.

I decided I'd try to make a model of our family's bloodstones. I could keep it in my room with the real ones.

Maybe I could do a chant tonight and just _make_ a model. But no. I'd need at least one more person, and Dad doesn't want to chant anymore. Every morning I have to do our chants by myself, quietly, so he doesn't hear. When he dug up the bloodstones I had to sneak them all up to my room. I dropped one on accident, so it's a little chipped, but it doesn't seem to have any ill effects on the chants or anything.

Or if it has, I hope they've all been directed at Desert Bluffs.

Anyway. school starts tomorrow, if the school is open. It's been on and off lately, since the teachers are apparently just blinking in and out of existence in the time signature of 12/8. But at least the band has been able to finally learn it.

Matt walked too close to the Dog Park yesterday, so he looks a little transparent. He says he only did it because he hoped he would grow a tentacle, but really all it did was turn him into a sort of ghost thing.

I'm keeping an eye out for a new best friend.

Dad just came home, cursing Cecil and the City Council. I think because he got 10 stamps, he's allowed to use those kinds of words around the house, and apply them to the City Council and to pillars of the community like Cecil. But I still don't like them very much, so I like to crawl into the bloodstone circle in my room and pretend I don't hear them. I imagine Cecil talking about pizza and rain and lights over Arby's so I don't have to hear my dad shouting. All I really want is to have a normal family. I don't know why I can't.


	2. Chapter 2

There was school today. I woke up early so I could do an extra long chant. I don’t want to have a bad first day. I also hoped I could find a new friend, because Matt disappeared last night. (That was good though: it would have been awkward to see him.)

I didn’t exactly find a new friend, but there’s a new girl in my class. Apparently she was in the other class until just now, but I’d never seen her before. Oh well. It doesn’t really matter, because she’s absolutely gorgeous. She smiled at me over her lunch tray, and I felt embarrassed because I only ever bring a green apple for lunch. Getting hot lunch is so glamorous, especially when you have to dodge the lunch lady’s fiery glare.

But her dress was so red and bouncy and her hair was so red and curly and bouncy, and her red shoes shone against the dull, probably bloodstained floor of the cafeteria.

I am absolutely certain that I am in love. She came and sat by me and told me her name was Carlotta, and what was my name, and it was nice to meet me and wow that was a good-looking apple and what are you writing and I thought City Council banned pens?

I mutely showed her the charcoal I had begged from Big Rico to be able to write my diary. I didn’t show her the diary. I didn’t even talk to her. God, it must have been awful. I hope she didn’t find me dull. It seemed like she liked being able to talk without any interruptions, and her voice was really, really compelling for some reason.

Too soon, lunch was over, and I had only ever taken a single bite from my good-looking green apple and I was watching Carlotta’s red hair, dress and shoes bounce away from me.

Tonight, I will chant extra hard. I think Dad’s out, so maybe I’ll be able to do it audibly too. That would help matters greatly, I think.

School in general is also going well. My Weird Spanish class is exactly as I’d hoped it would be. The curriculum changes they’ve implemented since it started have really helped the program along, I think.

School actually seemed a lot better after lunch. I’m not really sure why exactly, since I only had a bite of apple, but somehow my mood was just lifted up like a cloud.

Now that I think about it, it was probably Carlotta, wasn’t it?

I’d better start the chant now. Longer, louder ones always work the best.


	3. Chapter 3

Dad came in just as I was finishing the chant.

I don’t have bloodstones anymore. They’re shattered on the ground outside my window.

I didn’t get to finish my chant, unless the things that my dad yelled somehow finished the ritual.

Hopefully any disaster will hit Desert Bluffs. That will be a small comfort.

I hate my dad.

Carlotta will never talk to me again.

Matt disappeared.

I guess I’ll just look at where I would have put my bloodstone model.

Also cry maybe.

I _hate_ my dad.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Well, I guess I was wrong. Carlotta did come and talk to me again, and I managed to tell her what happened with my dad last night. She was astonished, and she also said I could come use her family’s bloodstones if I needed to.

I’m wasn’t sure what would happen if I used another family’s bloodstones, so I just sort of nodded and smiled.

“Why don’t you come tonight?” she then asked.

I stuttered a lot, but then said sure, I’d just have to ask my dad.

“My dad already said it was okay,” Carlotta said, with a wonderful grin. “I have a bunch of stuff to show you.”

I’m leaving for her house in just a little while. I’m so nervous. My dad wasn’t here, and he didn’t leave a note, like usual, so I guess I’ll just assume City Council took him to the abandoned mine shaft. Hopefully he won’t be mad if he comes home and I’m not here.

Oh well. I wonder what Carlotta’s house will be like? It’s a not super far from my house, but it’s far enough away I haven’t walked past it before. She said it used to be an old laboratory, and her dad is a scientist. That’s really cool. I wonder if I’ll be able to look at some real live experiments.

She also said she was going to give me a tour of a super-awesome place that her other dad works at. I hope it’s not dangerous or a place we’re not supposed to go. Carlotta is the kind of girl who would just dash into the Dog Park without a second thought. I’ll have to be careful.

But I suppose if we were sucked into the Dog Park, it would be a more interesting place to live. Also we could have bloodstones and be friends with the Hooded Figures. I know it’s illegal, and I would never, ever do it, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a Hooded Figure as a friend.

But now I have Carlotta, which is probably a million times better than a Hooded Figure anyway. I have six more minutes before I have to leave for her house.

What if her dad doesn’t like me, and says I can’t be friends with her?

Actually, her dad is probably a lot like her, so he might not really care who his daughter brings to be friends with her.

I mean, he doesn’t not care like _my_ dad doesn’t care, but he just sort of doesn’t care in a different way; like, he lets her make her own choices in friends and also probably clothes and food.

…I don’t know what I’m thinking. I haven’t even met him yet.

Three minutes!

 


	5. Chapter 5

When I got to Carlotta’s house, I knocked on their door and her scientist dad let me in. He looked really tired and his lab coat and hair were rumpled. Carlotta had told me he was a little strange, but he seemed really, really nice.

He smiled and introduced himself as Carlos. Then Carlotta bounced around the corner.

“Hi Eoin!” she shouted, and then grabbed my hand to pull me further into the house.

“Don’t go in the lab, please Carlotta,” Carlos told her. “I have some delicate experiments in there.”

“It’s okay, we won’t.” Carlotta dragged me into their kitchen. “But can we go to the radio station later?”

“Sure, sure.” Carlos rambled back down the hallway, to his lab, I guessed.

“Why are we going to the radio station?” I asked Carlotta. My dad told me to never ever go near the radio station because it was worse than the Dog Park probably even.

She rolled her eyes. “Silly. I already told you remember? My dad works there.”

“Wait--”

Wait?” She looked concerned.

“Your dad is Cecil? From the radio?”

“Weren’t you wondering where I got this magnificent voice from?” She struck a pose. “And these gorgeous blue eyes?”

She fluttered her eyelashes in a way that was obviously supposed to be ridiculous and funny. I couldn’t really pay attention.

“I, um, can’t go to the radio station.”

“Why not?” Carlotta looked surprised. “There aren’t any laws saying you can’t.”

“Well, my dad doesn’t like Cec-

…uh, he just doesn’t want me going near there. Because of the radio tower and the, uh, radiation and stuff.”

She narrowed her eyes. “So your dad won’t let you come near the radio station because he doesn’t like my dad.”

I looked at the ground. “…yeah.”

“Who even is your dad? I know everyone in Night Vale likes my dad. And my other dad, for that matter, except for one guy called Steve—

Oh.”

I felt my prospects of ever having a friend again draining down a metaphorical kitchen sink. “Yeah, um, I guess--” I backed toward the door. It was too late. My dad had wrecked my chances again.

“Don’t leave, idiot.” Carlotta tugged my hand. “Do you _want_ to come to the radio station?”

“It isn’t, um, dangerous?”

“Of course not. Don’t just take other people’s word for things, okay? You’ve got to try stuff for yourself. I’m going to show you something when we get back, and then you can help me discover things! We’ll have lots of fun, and you don’t even have to tell your dad. And then if you get in trouble my dad can talk about it on the radio and then the Hooded Figures and the angels and everyone will be on your side because we all already know that your dad is a big, fat--”

She stopped. “Um,”

“Don’t worry about it.” I smiled, feeling brighter than I had in a long time. “Let’s go.”

 


End file.
